A few weeks ago I went to visit my sister and folks in New Jersey. My sister Gail was cooking up a pot of soup for lunch that smelled pretty good. She had a lot of leftovers from the week including some leftover London Broil that she grilled up the night before.

This is one of those recipes that are just thrown together in the moment with leftovers in the refrigerator and the pantry. It’s one of my favorite ways of cooking. Finding creative ways to use up leftovers is not that hard and makes one night of cooking a lot easier.

My sister doesn’t own a real good soup pot so she had to saute all the vegetables in a fry pan and then transfer them to her inexpensive all-purpose pot. If she tried to saute in the thin-bottomed, inexpensive pot, there is a good chance she would have burned them and ruined the soup.

I try using as few pans as possible when I cook at home. There is enough stuff to do with the kid’s homework and getting them ready for bed. I don’t need to be cleaning any extra pans. Nor does my sister, so I have a good idea what to get her for Christmas this year. I’ll have to go back and read my article on Choosing and Buying a Good Soup Pot.

My sister used leftover London Broil, which is really a cooking method and not a cut of beef but most of us have associated it with a top round roast that can be cooked whole, cut in half or cut into steaks. Any leftover cooked beef would work well in this recipe.

Leftover Beef & Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

• 3 onions, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 1 package mushrooms 12 – 14 oz, chopped
• 6 fresh carrots, peeled and diced
• 4 tablespoons butter (½ stick)
• 6 cups of beef broth (my sister used 3 cans of College Inn beef stock but I recommend homemade or try Glace de Viande Gold)
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• Beef leftovers – any kind of steak cubed
• ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
• Salt & pepper, to taste
• 1 can black beans with liquids, approximately 15 oz.
• 1 can red kidney beans with liquids, approximately 15 oz.

Preparing at Home

• In a large soup pot, saute the onions, carrots, mushrooms and celery in the butter over medium-high heat for about 7 to 8 minutes.

• Add the beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, and sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer.

• Add the cooked beef to the pot, crushed red pepper and season with a little salt & pepper. Simmer for about an hour with the cover on.

• Remove the cover, add the black and red beans and simmer for an additional ½ hour to 1 hour with the cover off.

• Taste and adjust seasoning with salt & pepper.

Options Try using any leftover vegetables you might have around. This is a great soup to clean out your refrigerator of leftovers.

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